My dad likes to tell this story, especially around Halloween. You’ll see why. And, of course, whenever anyone starts discussing “That one guy”. You know the one. That person in every unit/workplace/class you’ve ever been in that makes you wonder how many times this person was dropped as a child. And also what your CO/boss/instructor was thinking/smoking when they allowed this person into the group. That guy that makes you say “wow, somewhere a village is missing it’s idiot”.

This is a story about that one guy. My dad was an airborne ranger (a cook, airborne ranger, the most badass cook in the army) and, of course, they had training jumps. Now, one thing that every soldier knows is that if you are going to jump out of an airplane and then hike ten miles back, you don’t bring non-essential crap. What you do bring is lots of water. Most of the guys on the plane had a couple of two-quarts plus a camelback, except that one guy. He only had a two-quart, he was worried about the weight of the extra water. He did, however, bring a large bag of candy. (more…)

This list has become my personal type of guideline, which is why people at work worry about me coming in with a black trenchcoat. Why I am missing the obvious “explosions fix everything!”, thats because I adopted that from someone else. The rest was modified for my purpose.

Set your Tivos and other lesser DVRs now. Seriously. Right fucking now. Cancel all of your other plans on Halloween. Watch this. make sure all of your your friends are watching it too. Do not let this show get taken out like Firefly did.(more…)

So to begin with I’m not a member of any military organization, the closest I ever came was to be rejected from Annapolis because my vision was off in one eye. The only ways in which I remotely military are the fact I’m in shape and have short cropped hair.

It is the middle of the afternoon I’m walking down in the street in Incheon, with my girlfriend (a Korean-American) when out of nowhere comes this American military officer who is yelling something at someone about, “Why the hell are you off base?”. I start to look around for what poor guy is about to ripped a new one when I suddenly realize the 2LT is bearing down on me, convinced I’m in his unit and currently AWOL.

He pulls up in front of me and pokes me in the chest and proceeds to tell me I’m in big trouble and how I’m supposed to be on duty. My smartass comment “Oh the draft is back? That sucks.” goes unappreciated. The funny part is he doesn’t appear to know my name. He keeps refering to me as “Mister”. I’m staring at this guy and trying to figure out of he is drunk, but I can’t smell any alcohol on his breath and he seems sober, just stupid.

In the spirit of not being a dick I was trying to suggest he has the wrong guy and offering to pull my passport and University ID, but he isn’t having it. He keeps poking me in the chest and blustering. He finally pushes the right button when he says something about “sneaking off to fuck some Korean whore” in reference to my GF who is standing beside me. I promptly take a swing at him and follow it up with a knee in the groin*. I end up taking him down to the ground so I can punch him more effectively and my GF being the doll she is gets a few kicks into his ribcage. She also got me with one of the kicks, but I try not to hold that against her.

The fun doesn’t last long; some Korean cops had been watching the confrontation and waded in to break it up. Lucky for me, my girlfriend is there to present them with a one-sided account of the encounter in Korean. So we end up in the police station having some tea, noodles, and kimchee while the 2LT is cuffed and tossed in a holding cell. One of the Korean cops is nice enough to walk in and dump half a bottle of peroxide on the 2LT’s face, prompting a series of angry yells. It all ends with a pair of very pissed off officers and some military police showing up to collect the 2LT. As he’s being hauled one of the officers looks at the 2LTs face, then at me, then back at the 2LT and I hear him mutter “…by a fucking college kid.” I’m assuming the part before that was: “Had his ass beaten…”.

Eventually some civilian relations type of person from the Army looked me up to make sure I wasn’t planning on pressing charges or anything, which I’m not (only took them 3 weeks to locate me). The Army did refuse my request that as a good faith gesture they tattoo “Warning: Contents of Butterbar May Be Racist and/or Stupid” across the 2LT’s forehead.

*One thing I did learn in JROTC: If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying. Thanks Chief Stewart for those words of wisdom.

After this post a few days ago, I several people suggested that a T-shirt would be a really good idea. And so my wife spent part of the afternoon adding it to our Zazzle store. And then it just never showed up.

So it turns out that Zazzle will not let me sell C’thulu Squarepants products.(more…)